Privacy Policy

Effective date: 19 September 2026

Lara (also called LaraBot) at larabot.co ("we," "us," or "our") is a personal expense companion that lives in WhatsApp and Telegram, plus a related website. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, and protect your information when you use the Service.

Data Controller: Lara is operated by Stennir Inc., a Delaware (USA) corporation, which is the data controller for the Service. Lara was built and is run by its founder, Johnny Nassar. For data protection inquiries, contact privacy@larabot.co.

Merchant of Record: Paid subscriptions are sold by Paddle.com as Merchant of Record, under the seller name Lamma. Paddle handles checkout, tax, and payment data. See Paddle's privacy policy for how they process payment information.

Lara is an AI assistant. Replies are generated by software, not written by a person. To work, Lara sends the text of your messages and any receipt photos to Anthropic, and any voice notes to OpenAI (details in Sections 1 and 4).

By using Lara, you agree to the practices described in this policy. If you do not agree, please discontinue use of the Service.

How messaging works

You can use Lara on:

• WhatsApp — Twilio Business API, number +1 318 650 6431. WhatsApp is not end-to-end encrypted for this product. Lara and Twilio read your messages in order to log expenses. Transport encryption applies in transit; it is not E2E to Lara.
• Telegram — @Lara_Budget_Bot. Messages you send are similarly processed by Lara to provide the Service.

The current default WhatsApp provider is Twilio. We may use Meta's WhatsApp Cloud API as an optional future provider; it is not the current default.

1. What Data We Collect

1.1 Data You Provide

When you interact with Lara via WhatsApp, Telegram, or our website, we may collect:

• Expense data — amounts, currencies, merchant names, categories, descriptions, and dates that you log via messages, voice notes, or receipt photos
• Budget and goal data — spending limits by category and goals you set
• Language preference — English or Arabic
• Currency preference — your chosen base currency (e.g., AED, USD, LBP)
• Monthly income, monthly savings target, and pay day — Lara asks for these during setup so it can show what you have left to spend. Each question is optional: reply skip and Lara works without it.
• Investment entries — if you use investment tracking (Pro), the names, amounts, types, dates, and notes you enter
• Recurring expenses and custom categories you set up
• Chat history — the messages you send Lara and Lara's replies are stored so Lara can follow the conversation (the most recent few messages are included when your next message is sent to the AI). The original text of a message you log as an expense is stored with that expense.
• Phone number (WhatsApp) or Telegram chat ID (Telegram) — used to identify you and deliver messages (see Section 3)
• Voice notes — the audio is sent to OpenAI to be transcribed; the transcript is then handled like a text message. Lara does not store the audio file.
• Receipt photos — the whole image is sent to Anthropic so the AI can read the items and totals. Lara does not store the image. Please do not send photos that show a full card number, an ID document, or anything else you would not want an AI provider to process — crop or cover it first.
• Spreadsheets you upload (Excel / CSV import) — the file is read in memory to create expense entries and is not kept; the entries it creates are stored like any other expense
• Family membership — if you join a Family account, we store the link between your user and that shared account (up to 6 seats)
• Email address — only if you voluntarily contact us or Paddle collects it at checkout
• Support messages — emails you send us, and anything you send through a support command in your chat if one is offered
• Preferences — reminder, nudge, and daily-quote settings

1.2 Data We Derive

• Income bracket — a low / mid / high label on your account used only to adjust Lara's tone. Today it stays at "unknown" for everyone; Lara does not currently calculate it.
• Learned patterns — for example, expenses Lara detects as recurring each month
• Coaching records — which coaching nudges you were sent and how you reacted
• Consistency Score — a numerical score (0–100) calculated from your spending patterns and budget adherence
• Spending summaries — weekly and monthly aggregations of your expense data
• Timezone — inferred from your phone number country code (WhatsApp)

1.3 Data We Automatically Collect

• Message metadata — timestamps of your interactions with the Service
• AI usage records — token counts and cost per AI request, linked to your internal user ID (not the content)
• Subscription status — your current plan (Free, Plus, Pro, or Family), trial state, and billing identifiers needed to talk to Paddle

2. What We Do NOT Collect

• Bank account numbers, card numbers, or any payment account credentials (Paddle processes cards; we do not). If a photo you send happens to show one, it is sent to the AI provider with the rest of the image — see "Receipt photos" above.
• Bank connections, Plaid, or any automatic import from a financial institution
• Your real name (unless you voluntarily include it in a message)
• Government-issued identification documents
• Social Security numbers, national ID numbers, or tax IDs
• Biometric data
• Location data (beyond timezone inferred from phone country code)
• Contacts, camera roll, or files from your device (beyond a receipt photo or voice note you explicitly send)

We do not connect to your bank, payment apps, or any banking institution. All expense data is entered by you. Lara does not recommend tickers, securities, or other investments.

3. How We Protect Your Data

3.1 Phone Number Protection

Your phone number receives special treatment:

• Hashing: Your phone number is converted to a one-way SHA-256 hash (combined with a secret salt) for identification. The raw number is not stored in the user table as a lookup key.
• Encrypted lookup: A separate, encrypted copy is stored so we can send you outbound messages (reports, confirmations) and, for Family admins, show a member's last four digits.
• Operational logs: Server logs at our hosting provider can contain the last four digits of a phone number (never the full number), internal user IDs, timestamps, error details, and in some cases the text of a message being processed. We are removing message text from routine logs. Logs are kept by the hosting provider under its own retention settings; error records (the error message and, where known, an internal user ID) are also saved in our database so problems can be tracked.
• What the AI sees: Your phone number is never sent to Anthropic or OpenAI. Anthropic receives the text of your messages, receipt photos you send, your recent chat messages, and the figures Lara needs to answer (category totals, budgets, remaining amount, savings target, and — for weekly and monthly reports — your monthly income if you gave it).

3.2 Infrastructure Security

• Application data is stored in a PostgreSQL database hosted by Supabase
• The application is hosted on Railway with HTTPS on public endpoints
• Payment processing is handled by Paddle (Merchant of Record) — we never see or store your card details
• API communications use TLS

3.3 Who at Lara can see your data

Stennir Inc. has one person working on Lara: the founder. There are no other staff. The founder can view user records — including expenses, budgets, goals, and chat history, and the phone number of an account when needed to contact that user — through a password-protected admin console, and directly in the database. This access is used to provide support, investigate bugs, and check that the Service is working. Automated internal reports sent to the founder contain totals and shortened internal user IDs.

4. Third-Party Services

We use the following processors to operate Lara. Each has its own privacy policy:

Service	Purpose	Data Shared
Anthropic (Claude)	Expense parsing, receipt reading, categorisation, reports, coaching, support	Message text, full receipt photos, recent chat messages, categories, amounts, totals, budgets, savings target, and monthly income for reports. Never phone numbers. For how Anthropic retains API data and whether it is used for training, see Anthropic's privacy policy and commercial terms.
Twilio	WhatsApp Business API (current default)	Phone number (required for delivery) and message content, including media you send
Telegram	Telegram Bot API — only if you use Telegram	Your Telegram account identifiers and message content
Paddle	Payments only — Merchant of Record for subscriptions (seller name Lamma). Paddle is not the operator of Lara.	Checkout details (email, payment method) handled by Paddle
Railway	Application hosting	Application data in transit and server logs (phone last-4 may appear)
Supabase	Database hosting (PostgreSQL)	Stored account, expense, and related data (hashed/encrypted as described above)
OpenAI (Whisper)	Voice-note transcription	The audio of voice notes you send. Not stored by us. For how OpenAI retains API data and whether it is used for training, see OpenAI's privacy policy and its API data commitments.
Paddle.js (cdn.paddle.com)	Checkout page on larabot.co	Your browser loads Paddle's script when you open a checkout link; Paddle then collects payment details directly
jsDelivr (cdn.jsdelivr.net)	Loads the chart library on your web report page	Your browser requests a script file from jsDelivr (IP address and browser details, as with any web request). No expense data is sent to jsDelivr.
ExchangeRate-API (open.er-api.com)	Public currency conversion rates	Only a currency code (e.g. "USD"). No user data.
Resend	Internal operations email to the founder	Daily internal report: totals and shortened internal user IDs. Not used to email users.
Google Fonts	Typography on larabot.co, including these legal pages	Your browser requests fonts from Google; see Google's privacy policy
Meta (optional, not default)	Possible future WhatsApp Cloud API provider	Not used as the default WhatsApp path today. If we switch or add it, WhatsApp traffic would flow through Meta as well as, or instead of, Twilio.

We do not sell, rent, or trade your data. Data is shared with the services above only as needed to operate the Service.

5. How We Use Your Data

We use the data we collect to:

• Track and categorise expenses you log
• Generate weekly summaries and monthly recaps
• Provide spending alerts when you approach or exceed limits
• Process recurring expense entries
• Deliver educational commentary about your spending patterns
• Run Family shared budgets when you join or own a Family account
• Process subscription payments via Paddle
• Respond to support inquiries
• Improve and debug the Service

Lara is a personal organiser and education product. It is not financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. We do not use your data to recommend securities or other investments.

5b. Legal Basis for Processing (GDPR / UK GDPR)

If you are located in the European Economic Area (EEA), United Kingdom, or another jurisdiction where the GDPR or similar data protection laws apply, we process your personal data on the following legal bases:

Processing Activity	Legal Basis
Providing the Service (expense tracking, reports, budgets)	Performance of contract (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR) — necessary to deliver the service you requested
Processing subscription payments	Performance of contract (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR)
Sending weekly summaries, monthly recaps, and spending alerts	Performance of contract (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR) — core service feature
AI-powered expense categorisation and insights	Performance of contract (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR) — core service feature
Debugging, error logging, and service improvement	Legitimate interest (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR) — maintaining service quality and security
Anonymised, aggregated analytics	Legitimate interest (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR) — improving the service
Responding to support requests	Legitimate interest (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR)

You may withdraw consent at any time where consent is the legal basis. Withdrawing consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing performed before withdrawal.

6. Data Retention

• Expenses, budgets, goals, recurring expenses, investments, categories, preferences: Kept until you delete them or delete your data. An expense you remove with undo is hidden from your totals but stays in the database (marked deleted) until you delete your data.
• Chat history (your messages and Lara's replies): Kept until you delete your data. There is no automatic expiry today.
• Voice notes and receipt photos: Not stored by Lara. They are passed to OpenAI (audio) or Anthropic (images) for processing; those providers' own retention terms apply (links in Section 4). Copies may also remain in your WhatsApp or Telegram chat and with Twilio or Telegram under their terms.
• Weekly summaries and monthly recaps: Generated when they are sent. The message text is kept as part of your chat history.
• Support messages: Emails you send us stay in our mailbox until we delete them; ask and we will. Messages you send through the support command in chat are stored as a support ticket (your message, our reply, and the ticket status) until you delete your data or ask us to remove them.
• Server logs: Held by our hosting provider under its own retention settings. Error records and AI usage records in our database have no automatic expiry today.
• Web report and upload links: Expire after 7 days.
• Coaching nudges: Intended to be kept for about 12 weekly cycles; there is no automated purge job yet. If you delete your data, these rows are anonymised (the user link is removed) rather than erased, so aggregate product learning can continue without your identity.
• Payment records: Held by Paddle as Merchant of Record for as long as tax and accounting law requires. We cannot delete those.

6.1 What "delete my data" actually does

To delete, send delete my data (or a similar phrase) and confirm by typing yes, delete everything.

What is removed from our database:

• Expenses (including ones hidden by undo), budgets, goals, recurring expenses, investments, custom categories and subcategories, preferences, learned patterns
• Your chat history
• The encrypted copy of your phone number or Telegram chat ID (so we can no longer message you)
• Web report / upload links
• Stored raw AI outputs from the coaching loop
• Support tickets you opened from chat (your messages and our replies)
• AI usage records linked to you (token counts and cost per AI request)
• Error records linked to you, and any confirmation that was waiting for your answer
• Your Family link (if you own the Family account, members are unlinked and the account and its invites are removed)
• Paddle billing identifiers on your record, your income, savings target, pay day, and plan — reset to blank / Free

We also try to cancel any Paddle subscription we can see for you. If that fails (for example, Paddle is unreachable) the deletion still goes ahead, so please check with billing first or email support@larabot.co if you are charged afterwards.

What remains:

• A user record containing a one-way hashed identifier of your phone number or Telegram ID, the date the record was created, and your language, currency, and timezone settings. It is kept so you can start again by messaging Lara; because the creation date is kept, the 14-day trial does not restart. It contains no expenses or messages.
• Coaching nudge rows with the link to you removed (anonymised)
• Server logs at our hosting provider until they expire
• Copies held by processors under their own terms: Anthropic and OpenAI (API inputs), Twilio or Telegram (message history), and Paddle (payment and tax records)
• Emails you sent us, and support requests sent from the website chat (those are not linked to your chat account)

To have the remaining record and anything else we hold erased, email privacy@larabot.co. We will remove what we control and tell you what we cannot (for example, Paddle's tax records).

7. Your Rights

Depending on your location, you may have the following rights under applicable data protection laws (including the GDPR, UK GDPR, and similar legislation):

7.1 Right of Access

You have the right to request a copy of the personal data we hold about you. You can export expense data by requesting a PDF or Excel report through the bot (available periods: all time, or last 1, 3, 6, or 12 months). For a full data access request, email privacy@larabot.co.

7.2 Right to Rectification

You can correct inaccurate data by editing or deleting individual expenses through the bot (e.g., "undo" or "delete last"). For other corrections, contact us.

7.3 Right to Erasure

Use the in-chat flow in Section 6.1. That flow cancels billing, unlinks Family, and resets the account. It is not a silent, complete wipe of the user row. Email privacy@larabot.co to request remaining erasure. We will respond within 30 days (or the timeframe required by applicable law).

7.4 Right to Restriction of Processing

You may request that we restrict processing in certain circumstances (e.g., while we verify accuracy). Contact privacy@larabot.co.

7.5 Right to Data Portability

You can export your data in structured formats (PDF and Excel) through the bot.

7.6 Right to Object

You may object to processing based on legitimate interests. Email privacy@larabot.co.

7.7 Right to Withdraw Consent

Where processing is based on consent, you can withdraw consent at any time. Withdrawal does not affect the lawfulness of processing performed before withdrawal.

7.8 Right to Lodge a Complaint

If you believe we have violated your data protection rights, you may lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. For UK residents, this is the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk. For EU residents, contact your local data protection authority.

7.9 Change Your Preferences

You can update language and currency by sending commands like "set currency USD" or "set language ar" to the bot.

7.10 Opt Out

You can stop using the Service by not sending messages. If you want your data reset and remaining erasure handled, use the deletion flow above or email us.

We will respond to data-rights requests within 30 days (or the timeframe required by applicable law). Requests are free of charge unless manifestly unfounded or excessive.

7b. Automated Decision-Making

Lara uses AI (Anthropic Claude) to categorise expenses and generate spending commentary. This processing:

• Does not produce legal effects or similarly significantly affect you
• Is limited to expense categorisation and educational commentary
• Can be corrected by you at any time (edit categories, delete entries)
• Does not make decisions on your behalf, and does not recommend investments

The income-bracket label described in Section 1.2 is only used to adjust tone. It does not affect access to features or pricing.

8. Cookies and Local Storage

The Lara website does not set cookies and does not use localStorage:

• No tracking cookies, no analytics cookies, no advertising cookies. Your web report and upload pages are opened with the private link Lara sends you in chat; nothing is saved in your browser to keep you signed in.
• The checkout page loads Paddle's script, and Paddle may set its own cookies or storage to process your payment — see Paddle's privacy policy.
• The web report page loads a chart library from jsDelivr.
• Legal and marketing pages load webfonts from Google Fonts.
• We do not use third-party advertising pixels or fingerprinting technologies on our website.

9. Children's Privacy

You must be at least 18 years old to open a Lara account or pay for a plan. A person aged 16 or 17 may use Lara only as a member of a Family plan, when invited by an adult account owner who is their parent or legal guardian and who takes responsibility for that seat. Lara is not for anyone under 16. We do not knowingly collect data from children under 16. If you believe a child under 16 has used the Service, contact us and we will reset the account and handle remaining erasure as described above.

10. International Data Transfers

Lara is operated by Stennir Inc., a Delaware (USA) corporation. Our processors (including Anthropic, Twilio, Telegram, Paddle, Railway, Supabase, OpenAI, Google, jsDelivr, ExchangeRate-API, and Resend) may process data in the United States, the United Kingdom, the EU, and other jurisdictions.

Where your personal data is transferred outside the EEA or UK, we rely on the safeguards our processors maintain (such as Standard Contractual Clauses or the UK IDTA) and on encryption in transit. You may ask about those safeguards at privacy@larabot.co.

11. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify active users via WhatsApp or Telegram at least 14 days before the changes take effect. The "Effective date" at the top of this page indicates when the policy was last revised.

Continued use of the Service after changes take effect constitutes your acceptance of the revised policy.

12. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or your data, contact us at:

Email: privacy@larabot.co

Email is our support channel. If Lara offers a support command in your chat, you can use that too. In your chat, privacy shows a link to this page.